The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
MAHATMA Gandhi's Sevagram ashram in Maharashtra was the appropriate site for a recent conference marking the birth centenary of J C Kumarappaan economist who became one of Gandhiji's closest associates and the most ardent advocate of his ideas on rural development. Through prolific writing in books and magazines over a …
MAHATMA Gandhi wanted Indian economics to be based on facts and figures obtained through rigorously scientific surveys. In 1930, he urged J C Kumarappa to conduct an economic survey of Matar taluka, a famine-stricken area in Gujarat's Kaira district. Kumarappa's pathbreaking study of conditions prevailing in rural India is still …
On the virtues of a natural life If we have to utilise as food the nutritious elements found in nature, we may get gur from palm trees that grow wild on uncultivable lands and obtain the whole benefit of the sap, minus the water which it contains, along with the …
ENVIRONMENTALISTS are concerned that plans by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to provide Cambodia with a US $3.78 million aid package, includes supply of 30 tonnes of insecticides worth US $800,000. Japan Tropical Forest Action Network, an NGO, reports two of the chemical fertilisers are diazinon and sumicidin, which are …
TRIBALS from 23 villages in Udaipur district, citing the potential displacement of 12,000 people, are gearing up for protracted battle with the government to scrap the proposed Manasi Wakal dam, intended to supply drinking water to Udaipur. The villagers allege the project, in fact, was conceived to meet the massive …
MARINE scientists working in the Bay of Bengal region advocate a holistic approach, including multidisciplinary research and placing marine environment high on national agendas, to ensure the region does not deteriorate. Scientists from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh discussed at length the threat to fisheries in …
IN DAYS long gone, the bearer of bad tidings was usually put to death unceremoniously. In today's more civilised times, we in the Third World prefer to vilify such messengers as biased agents of neo-imperialists, who never hesitate to point out the mote in our eyes while remaining blissfully oblivious …
EFFORTS by individual governments to raise environmental standards could be undermined by proposals to lower technical barriers to international trade, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The organisation says by seeking to apply international standards, the proposed GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) rules would outlaw …
THE NEW Global Environment Facility (GEF) fund is getting bogged down by wrangles over how to distinguish between national and international benefits in environmental projects. After disagreements surfaced at a GEF-sponsored workshop in Delhi in February, GEF administrator Ian Johnson proposed setting up a special committee to thrash out the …
Hasn't Rio clearly shown we were living under an illusion when we thought environmental concerns would make a difference in the world power structure. Why should things change now? We have new developments stemming from a deteriorating economic position worldwide. There is a growing trend towards nationalism and fundamentalism that …
The controversy over the Konkan railway route through Goa is acquiring communal hues. The Diocesan Pastoral Council, which has adamantly opposed the coastal route contending it would cause dislocation, served notice last month on the state's Roman Catholic legislators to oppose the proposed railway actively or face the wrath of …
WATER is priced far too cheaply in India to prompt industrialists into conserving or recycling it, says a detailed study prepared by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) for the Ganga Project Directorate. But the government has let the NIPFP recommendations lie in its cupboards. The study …
PAPER mills can substantially reduce their water consumption if they were charged a higher price for the water they use, says a detailed water audit conducted by the Bureau of Industrial Costs and Prices (BICP). In 1989, the pulp and paper industry had an annual installed capacity of 3.354 million …
MADRAS Refineries Ltd (MRL) will soon be a zero-effluent company. Situated in Manali, on the outskirts of water-starved Madras, MRL plans to treat its waste water and pump it back for circulation in its cooling towers. The Madras city corporation, which is extremely short of water, has placed restrictions on …
PARTICIPANTS: G D AGARWAL ADVISERENVIROTECH INSTRUMENTS PVT. LTD D N BASU PLANNING COMMISSION KANCHAN CHOPRA PROFESSORINSTITUTE OF ECONOMIC GROWTH V B ESWARAN FORMER REVENUE SECRETARYMINISTRY OF FINANCE K P GEETHAKRISHNAN FINANCE SECRETARYMINISTRY OF FINANCE ARUN KUMAR CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC STUDIES AND PLANNINGJAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY SURENDRA KUMAR MANAGER (SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENT) …
SINCE 1991, the Balotra municipality has been levying a tax of Rs 15 for every bale of cloth coming into the town for processing and dyeing. The levy was started by the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) on complaints by farmers downstream about groundwater pollution and will be used to …
• Entrepreneurs should be encouraged to set up separate companies that will operate common effluent treatment plants. While the companies would be paid for effluent treatment, their income would be exempt from tax, which would help them upgrade their technology and become more efficient. The companies could undertake not to …
CHARGES: Charges are a "price" polluters must pay for using environmental services. They increase costs of production for polluting industries. Various types of charges are: • Effluent charges are levied based on the quantity and/or quality of effluents discharged into the environment. • User charges are payments for collective effluent …
IN THE last 100 years of industrialisationindustrial firms have sought to increase their efficiency and profitability through increases in labour productivity. One fallout of this was the replacement of human labour with machines thatin turnhas resulted in heavy natural costs as industries became increasingly energy- and material-intensive. All this has …
WEEKS after the Liberian-registered oil tanker, Braer, was wrecked by hurricane winds off the coast of Britain's Shetland Islands, scientists and environmentalists who had predicted a wildlife disaster feel the environment's resilience may have been underestimated. The Braer spilled its entire load of 26 million gallons of oil, more than …
